


Broke

by Beth Harker (Beth_Harker)



Category: Newsies (1992)
Genre: Discussion of Violence, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-15
Updated: 2014-04-15
Packaged: 2019-09-27 22:32:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 769
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17170682
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beth_Harker/pseuds/Beth%20Harker
Summary: For once Mush is the angry one.





	Broke

Mush had just come out of the shower, when he found Blink sitting on the edge of his bed, cradling one hand in the other, and looking down at it like it was something he’d never seen before. Mush didn’t much blame him. It was all black and blue and about three sizes bigger than it’d been the morning before. He looked about as forlorn as Mush had ever seen him, and Mush didn’t blame him much for that either.

There were other things that he blamed Blink for anyways, and he meant to hash them out man to man, just the way things were supposed to be hashed out. That’s why he climbed up and sat down on the edge of Blink’s bed, close and chummy like always, and put a damp arm around his shoulder, also close and chummy like always, but didn’t smile when he looked at Blink. He’d been up all night thinking about it, and what he was gonna say, and he didn’t want to smile like it was all okay when it really wasn’t.

“How’s your hand, Kid?” He asked.

“Not great,” Blink admitted. “Think it’s broke. Can’t move my fingers so good. Ain’t sure I can climb down from the bed right.” Blink’s voice dropped a little bit at the finish, like he was embarrassed that he couldn’t climb down from his own bed, and Mush had to bite down on his lip and purposely look away to stop himself from offering to help.

“Well,” Mush said, just as firmly as he could muster, “good thing it’s your hand, not Pie Eater’s skull. Never thought I’d say it, Kid, but I’m glad you don’t see too good, and you should be too, ‘cause otherwise that hole in the wall over there’d be in Pie Eater’s face.”

“He said…”

Mush had to swallow hard there. He could hear the betrayal in Blink’s voice. He’d known Blink for a long time. Blink was his best friend in the entire world.

“I know what he said,” Mush countered. “All he said is that you sweat a lot. Not like anybody minds. All of us does when it’s hot enough out. That ain’t no reason to deck a fella’s brains out.”

“Since when does he got brains?”

Mush winced. Blink must’ve seen, because his next words were, “What? Are you on his side or what?”

There was a catch in Blink’s voice, and Mush couldn’t help but look at him then. He was still pretty and golden like always, but Mush could see something else too, a twelve year old kid who’d walked into the lodging house one night, looking like he’d spent the entire last month sleeping in a dumpster. And Mush had been scrawny then, but Blink had been even scrawnier, and even though this kid had pissed the bed every night of the first four he spent at the lodge, and managed to give everybody head lice within his first week, Mush had known right off the bat that he liked him better than any other person he’d ever met.

Back in those days, when Mush was little and Blink was new, some of the older boys had laid into Blink pretty badly. Mush, Skittery, and Crutchy too, but not half as bad as they’d done Blink. The four of them had talked a lot about how when they were older and the top dogs they were going to do things differently, and look out for each other. Now all the jerks that had bothered them were grown up and gone, and the rest of them had succeeded in their goals. Mostly.

“You ain’t doin’ your part,” Mush said.

“What part? My part of what?”

“To make this a good place to live, like we said we was gonna. You’re flying off the handle at every little thing.”

“If you was half as angry as I is most of the time, you would too.” Blink clenched his good fist.

It took Mush a while to think up how to answer that. He was angry too, but more so because he didn’t know what to do, and sometimes he thought he was going to end up in prison one of these days, because if Blink ever went to prison for killing somebody, Mush was sure as hell going to be right there with him.

“You gotta try harder,” Mush said at last.

Blink just nodded, accepting.

“You want me to help you down now?”

Another nod from Blink, and Mush helped him to clamor down the bunk, careful not to jostle his injured hand


End file.
